4th Ohio coroner out of space for bodies because of drug overdoses

The Associated Press
March 14, 2017 at 2:19PM

CANTON, Ohio — Another Ohio county has made use of a mobile cooling unit to store bodies because its morgue ran out of space, in part because of fatal drug overdoses.

WEWS-TV (http://bit.ly/2n4y9lT ) reports the Stark County coroner had to bring in a 20-foot cooling trailer over the weekend. Investigator Rick Walters says the office was at capacity with eight bodies, then got four more on Saturday and employed the trailer.

Such temporary morgue arrangements also have been used Ashtabula (ash-tuh-BYOO'-luh), Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH'-guh) and Summit counties in northeast Ohio. The coroner in Dayton has said his office sought help from a local funeral home to store bodies amid an increase in overdose deaths.

A spokeswoman says the Ohio Department of Health has several cooling units that local agencies can request to use.

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